[Paddy] > If you still must have something like the c preprocessor > then unix has m4 (and it seems there is a windows version > http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/m4.htm).
The difficulty of `m4' for Python source is that macro expansions should be accompanied with proper adjustment of indentation, for adapting to the context where macros are getting expanded. René Seindal's `m4' is surprisingly powerful, so maybe that with enough trickery (I really mean: a _lot_ of trickery), adjustment of indentation could be possible. And maybe that a simpler `m4' approach to Python macro-expansion could be made available through the later pluggin features which René added to `m4'. (Yet I do not know if the pluggin features have been integrated in the `m4' distribution mainstream.) It would be much easier using `m4' for Python, if there was a way to invoke it after Python lexer and before further parsing, because <indent> and <dedent> tokens would already been identified. If this was possible, `m4' would be a breeze to use as a pre-processor for Python. Still in this dreaming mode, there would also be one necessary detail missing for full comfort: that is, the recognition of `#line' like directives as generated by `m4' so Python tracebacks, for example, would correctly refer to the Python source lines before macro-expansion. -- François Pinard http://pinard.progiciels-bpi.ca -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
